Today there are more than 700 different kinds of birds in Australia. Many, like the Emu, the Brush Turkey and the Blue Wren are found nowhere else in the world. They are endemic. Other birds have been introduced by humans to Australia, for example, the Domestic Pigeon and the English Sparrow. Both these species are well known all around the world. They arrived here by ship in the years after Captain Cook's landing in Botany Bay in 1776.
Scientists have thought a great deal about where all of Australia's birds came from. Aborigines and Europeans brought some of them, while other birds arrived here from Asia and elsewhere on their own. One such bird is the Bustard, which lives in the tall grass country in the north of Australia. Another group of birds may have developed entirely on their own in Australia.
